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AFRICAN COLONIZATION 



AND 



Christian Missions; 



A^ 



BY J. BERRIEN LINDSLEY, M.D., D.D. 



In the entire history of Christian effort and philanthropy, 
we doubt whether another instance occurs of such deep-seated, 
persistent, and long-continued misunderstanding and mis- 
representation as in the case of the American Colonization 
Society. From the very conception of this great and humane 
enterprise to the present day, the objects, purposes, views, 
desires, and hopes of its projectors, advocates, and friends 
have been perverted, distorted, and hence opposed by able 
men from widely different points of view, and for very differ- 
ent reasons. So varied, so intense, so artful, so forcible, so 
plausible, so malignant have been these multiform attacks 
that nothing but the great Christian miracle of patience in 
the hearts of its few but faithful friends, and the inherent 
excellence of the cause itself, could have enabled it to keep 
head above water during the half-century since the project 
first took practical shape in the mind of a true-hearted, hum- 
ble, Christian educator. 

Unhappily, just about the time that the philanthropic and 
devout Finley, of New Jersey, was attempting to get the atten- 
tion of American statesmen and churchmen to what he then 
conceived, and what we now know, to be one of the widest- 
reaching and most pregnant schemes of the prolific nineteenth 
century, the questions connected with the famous Missouri 
Compromise debate also began to agitate the country, literally 

* From the Theological Medium, for October, 1873, a Cumberland 
Presbyterian Quarterly, Nashville, Tenn. 
1 






African Colonization 



from center to circumference. The odium theologicum lias long 
been a by-word with moralists, and an opprobrium and 
stumbling-block with unbelievers. We hold, however, that it 
is as honey to gall when compared with political virulence, 
and that, indeed, it is ordinarily and truly but an oftshoot, or 
else constituent part, of the latter. So it came to pass that 
jaundiced eyes were immediately turned upon the founders of 
the Society and all connected with it, although it was also at 
once indorsed by many most prominent and influential public 
men. It was directly concerned with Africans, and thus with 
slavery ; and when this is written the whole tale is told, for 
upon this subject we all understand that the whole great 
American people have for some fifty years been either 
demented or else, in the righteous providence of God, for wise 
and gracious purposes, given over to wild delusions. Nations 
have their personal religious experience as well as individuals. 
Let us hope that the infatuation has passed away, and that 
speedily afiliction will have wrought its proper work, and that 
all this mighty nation will awake to righteousness, gird its 
loins, and go about its heaven appointed work of conveying 
the light of Christian civilization to the great continents on 
its right-hand and left. 

One singular misconception, prevailing from the start until 
this very day, and, because of its bearing upon the productive 
ability and hence financial interests of the nation at large, 
adapted to arouse insidious and deeply self-interested opposi- 
tion to the colonization scheme, is the idea that its advocates 
wish and intend to transport the vast African population of 
the United. States to its original seat. President Dew, of Wil- 
liam and Mary College, published an exceedingly interesting, 
well-written, and powerful pamphlet against the Society, based 
upon this view. I read it, twenty odd years since, on one of 
the old-time, magnificent packets between New Orleans and 
Nashville, being kindly favored with its use by a planter. It 
was a perfectly stunning argument, showing, as clearly as that 
two and two make four, that the Colonizationists were as vis- 
ionary as any of Dean Swift's Laputan philosophers, since, 
by the elastic law of population, just as fast as a few thousand 
liberated slaves #ere conveyed by slow-sailing ships to Liberia 



And Christian Missions. 3 

their places would be refilled by the increased fertility of the 
race caused by this very removal itself. And thus the good 
Finley, with Henry Clay, and all the rest of them, were merely 
engaged in rolling up the stone of Sisyphus, and with no bet- 
ter success. "We have since read the same line of argument 
inVillerme and other eminent publicists, but by none of them 
have we found it so thoroughly elaborated and so well expressed 
as by President Dew. Of course, it was to us afidmen brutum, 
as we knew very well what Dr. Finley and his associates pro- 
posed and what they did not propose. They proposed then, 
as now, to remove Christian African freedmen to Africa, for 
the sake of promoting the highest interests of these freedmen, 
and for the sake of Christianizing the great and populous con- 
tinent of Africa. The friends of Liberia have never been so 
ignorant of history and political science as to suppose that it 
was either desirable or practicable to remove three or five mil- 
lions of men, women, and children across a wide expanse of 
ocean, unless there was a greater stimulus behind these mil- 
lions than was either in Finley's time or is in ours. Strange, 
indeed, would have been such an error, for the founders of 
the American Colonization Society were among the most emi- 
nent educators, divines, and statesmen of the day. They had 
their head-quarters in the City of Washington, and were in 
every way so situated as to be just the very last men to make 
so gross a mistake. 

. If a great and deeply-learned man like Dew, of William 
ar}d Mary, should thus misjudge the scheme of Finley, we 
need not be surprised to find similar perverted ideas taking 
possession of narrower minds connected with leading and 
influential current magazines and journals. Since undertak- 
ing, a few months ago, to prepare this article for the Theolog- 
ical Medium., a quarterly to aid which every Cumberland 
Presbyterian minister should hold himself ready when called 
upon, I have met with a long article in a leading !N"ew York 
dail}', from the pen of a traveling correspondent in the South- 
ern States. I laid it aside, intending to copy it here, but time 
and its length forbid. It is a forcible delineation of .the great 
evil which the Colonization Society will inflict upon the South 
by tempting away from its limits sober, industrious laborers 



4 African Colonization 

just at the time when such useful citizens would be most val- 
uable in repairing its waste places. This argument and objec- 
tion, in fewer words, I have met perhaps a thousand times 
since the memorable year 1865, repeated by writers in every 
part of the land. Now, if these people, who are so stingily 
afraid of bestowing a little of American enlightenment upon 
that Africa which has done so much to create American wealth, 
will carefully read President Dew's able pamphlet, above- 
mentioned, they will at once dismiss all such fears. The 
American Colonization Society may, during the next decade, 
and the next, assist so many Christian-minded freedmen to 
their forefathers's land as to dot it from tropic to cape with 
mission-stations, and yet the African vote and the African 
labor in the South remain undiminished.* 

* President Dew was one of the profoundest and most influential writ- 
ers of his day on government, history, and political economy, although 
he died under forty-four years of age. He furnishes an illustrious exam- 
ple of the stupidity and lethargy of our Southern people in all matters 
intellectual. While his lectures and essays, written in the quiet of a vil- 
lage college, inaugurated, according to John Quincy Adams's opinion, a 
new era in the history of the country, yet no pains have been taken to 
collect and print them ; and his fugitive pieces, as well as his larger works, 
are but little known to students and general readers. Even Allibone, 
equally noted for minute accuracy and untiring industry, makes two indi- 
viduals of him, and then gives but a meager and imperfect idea of his 
life and merits; nor is he to be blamed, since materials for judgment 
were not at hand, as in the case of all English and Northern authors. 
Our great vehicles of daily mind-food a year or so ago passed around a 
sharp paragraph from the New England aristocratic iconoclast, Wendell 
Phillips, in which he terms the whites of the late Confederate States eight 
millions of dunces. It is very true that this is absurd enough as a whole- 
sale description of the people whose Washington founded the republic, 
and gave luster to the Anglo-Saxon race throughout the world and for all 
time; whose Madison, by consummate wisd6m, unequaled prudence, and 
profound knowledge of political science, did more than any or all others 
to shape and indite the best Constitution of human government ever 
committed to writing, and is justly called its father; whose Jefferson dis- 
played, in the Revolutionary Congress, at the French court, and in the 
Presidential chair, diplomatic and administrative ability which won the 
plaudits of the world, and more than doubled the territory and glory of 
his country; whose Marshall, during thirty-five years as Chief justice of 
the land, won laurels for the legal profession not more by the high moral 
qualities which so richly adorned his character than by the profound 



And Christian Missions. 5 

From 1830 to 1860 the American Colonization Society was 
exposed to pitiless attacks by fanatical and selfish parties on 
precisely difterent grounds in the antagonistic sections of the 



learning and strong intellect exhibited in his decisions; whose Jackson, 
by unsurpassed bravery and military skill, at the head of a small army 
of Western riflemen, saved his country from the assaults of Wellington's 
veterans, and as President, in times of violent dissension, won the high 
eulogium, reechoed from ocean to ocean of late, to the effect that had 
Providence given us a second Jackson in 1856 we would have been spared 
an Iliad of woes; whose Polk, the very type of a pure-minded ruler, 
extended the boundaries of the empire westward to the confines of the 
populous Orient; whose Clay, by his eloquence, swayed alike the senate 
and the hustings, and led captive hosts of idolatrous followers from Maine 
to Georgia; in short, whose public men fill the foremost place in the 
annals of our country's history, while her private citizens do more than 
any other equal number in creating public wealth. Yet Mr. Phillips, 
sitting within the four walls of his richly-furnished library, and looking 
at its shelves alone, may be excused, because in all this matter of writing 
and printing the South has done itself great injustice. Its heroes are not 
commemorated ; its authors are not remunerated. As, in the first quarter 
of this century, the witty and potent Sydney Smith, by asking, in the 
trenchant Edinburgh Review, "Who reads an American book?" cut to the 
quick the pride and self-esteem of the American people, and thus became 
a public literary benefactor, so may our kind hearted Boston neighbor 
become instrumental in a literary revival throughout the South ; and let 
the first employment of the pen and of the purse be the pious one of 
honoring those who have gone before and made us. Their lives and 
deeds should be recorded; their works should be published, and pre- 
served in multiplied public libraries. No people ever became a literary 
people by merely studying and imitating others. It must have its own 
history, ideas, and literature ; it must go back and build upon itself, how- 
ever modified by the outside and surrounding world. Let the stigma be 
wiped off. Let Virginia, the mother of States and of statesmen, and of 
universities, imitate the whole-souled liberality, the honorable sectional 
pride, the admirable filial piety of Massachusetts, and give to the world 
complete editions, handsomely printed and carefully edited, of all that 
can be gathered up from the pens of its Marshalls, Lees, Masons, Dews, 
and their numerous compeers. ye rich men of Richmond and Norfolk, 
of the Valley and of Piedmont, hasten to wipe away from the Old Domin- 
ion the opprobrium that annually within her borders more time, thought, 
and money are expended upon demoralizing horse-racing than upon keep- 
ing bright and polished the monuments, warm and green the memories 
of the noblest army of patriots, heroes, and sages with which any com- 
monwealth was ever blessed by the Supreme Benefactor of nations! 



6 African Colonization 

wide-extended Union. Throughout the North, particularly in 
the ITew England States, the most active and influential in 
forming public opinion, a very energetic and eloquent warfare 
was kept up against it as encouraging and abetting the sin of 
slavery. So violent and so successful was this warfare as 
almost to neutralize the efforts of the Society to secure an im- 
partial hearing. Only by heroic perseverance and a patient 
tenacity of purpose, rarely equaled and never surpassed, was 
it enabled to make head against its formidable foes, and to 
maintain its organization and fruitful activity. In the South- 
ern States, on the other hand, the narrow-minded and suicidal 
jealousy too often and too fatally exhibited by large capitalists 
against all efforts to ameliorate the condition of the laboring 
masses, and to elevate the poor, led to the same results. As 
the anti-slavery crusade in the north-eastern corner of the 
Union grew stronger of tongue and more potent of pen, so 
did the anxiety and timidity of accumulated capital in the 
South, particularly in the extreme Southern States, become 
more and more mercurial and easily alarmed. Hence, in these 
States African colonization was looked upon with great sus- 
picion as being the forerunner of revolutionary abolitionism. 
Very soon this suspicion was proclaimed, and the Society ren- 
dered so odious as to be compelled to restrict its operations 
mainly to a few border States. Yet, during this long, tedious 
dwelling in the wilderness of folly, contention, and strife — 
amidst the hootings of discordant passions and the bowlings 
of wild imaginings — the heaven-guided advocates of African 
regeneration held on unmoved in the course first markec^ out 
by the founders of their organization. It had nothing to do 
with the intrinsically-momentous questions connected with 
the continuance or termination of slavery. In each State 
these were to be settled on their own merits, precisely as had 
been the case during the period from 1776 to that of the for- 
mation of the Society. It was neither pro-slavery nor anti- 
slavery: it was a great Christian mission for the benefit of 
individuals and of two continents. 

The many minor points of prejudice and attack, varying 
with change of locality and time, our space does not allow us 
to state. All these, with the grand difficulties above imper- 



And Christian Missions. 7 

fectlj outlined, will be best commented upon by a brief sketch 
of the origin, aims, and results of the Society: 

The sentiment out of which it gre\v, more or less definitely formed 
into specific phiiis, was everywhere tending to realize itself in beneficent 
action f )r the colored race. This sentiment gushed forth at many j^oints ; 
so that many persons have been named as the originators of our enter- 
prise. And there is some ground for each of these claims, and, doubt- 
less, f)r many others that might have been advanced. They were 
originators, as truly as if there had been no others. Their relative 
merits cannot be settled by chnmology, f )r the thought was oft.enas 
fresh and original in the later proje-ctor as in any that had preceded him. 

The earliest movement known to have any historical coujiection with 
our Society was the visit of the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R. 
I., to his neighbor, the Rev. Ezra Stiles, April 7, 1773. The diary of 
Dr. Stiles has preserved the record. Dr. Hopkins proposed to educate 
*two pious negro youths f)r the ministry, and send them to Africa as 
missionaries; hoping, evidently, to send more in time. He needed 
assistance to meet the expense. The more practical mind of Dr. Stiles 
sugirested that the enterprise would not succeed in that form; that thirty 
or f )rty suitable persons must be sent out, and the whole conducted by 
a society formed for the purpose. This idea of a purely missionary set- 
tlement grew, in a few years, into a definite plan for a colony, with its 
agricultural, mechanical, and commercial interests. August 31, 1773, 
Drs. Stiles and Hopkins issued a circular, inviting contributions to their 
enterprise. February Z, 1774, a society of Indies in Newport had just 
made their first contribution; and aid liad been received from several 
parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. November 21, two of the 
young men sailed for New York, on their way to Princeton, N. J., to 
be educated under Dr. Witherspoon, president of the college. 

The War of Independence suspended these labors; but the plan and 
the purpose survived it. In 178-1:, and again in 1787, Dr. Hopkins 
endeavored to induce merchants to send out a vessel with a few emi- 
grants, to procure lands and make a beginning, and Avith goods, the 
profits on which would, of course, diminish the expense. In March, 
1789, he had consultations with Dr. William Thornton, "a young man 
from the West Indies," who proposed to take out a company of free 
blacks, and found a colony in Africa. A number volunteered to go 
with him, but the enterprise failed for want of funds. Dr. Thornton 
was afterward a member of the first board of managers of the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society. 

A UKmth later, Granville Sharpe and others sent the first colonists 
from London to Sierra Leone. This design was already known to Hop- 
kins. Perhaps, too, Sharpe had heard of the plans of Hopkins, as they 
liad been well known in England for some years; but they had no direct 
intercourse with each other till Hopkins wrote to Sharpe, January 15, 
1789, inquiring whether, and on what terms, and with what prospects, 
blacks from America could join the colony. There were then "Christ- 
ian blacks," desirous to emigrate, enough to form a church; and one of 
them was fit to be its pastor. 

Unsuccessful in this, he continued his labors. In 1791, he wished 



8 African Colonization 

the Connecticut Emancipation Society to be incorporated, with power 
to act as an education and colonization society. In 1793, he preached 
a sermon before a kindred society at Providence, which was published 
with an appendix, in wliich he advocated almost the exact course of 
action afterward adopted by this Society, and urged its execution by the 
United States Government, the several State governments, and by vol- 
untary societies. 

Hopkins died December 20, 1803; but the influence of these labors 
still lived. Tiiey must have been well known to Capt. Paul Ciiffee, of 
New Bedford, and the thirty emigrants whom he took to Sierra Leone 
in his own vessel, early in 1815; and in 1826, two of his "hopeful 
young men," Newport Gardner, aged seventy-five, and John Nubia 
(known in Hopkins's correspondence as Salmur Nubia, and familiarly 
in Newport as Jack Mason), aged seventy, hoping to move their breth- 
ren by their example, sailed from Boston in the brig "Vine," the eighth 
vessel sent out by this Society. 

The next movement liaving any historical result was in Virginia. _ 
December 31, 1800, the Legislature, in secret session, 

"Resolved, That the Governor be requested to correspond witli the 
Piesident of the United States on the suliject of purchasing lands with- 
out the limits of this State, whither persons obnoxious to the laws or 
dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." 

The Governor, Monroe, in communicating this resolution to the Presi- 
dent, stated that it was passed in consequence of a conspiracy of slaves 
in and around Richmond, for Avhich the conspirators, under existing 
laws, might be doomed to death. It was deemed more humane, and it 
was hoped not less expedient, to transport such offenders beyond the 
limits of the State. President Jefferson favored the idea, discussed the 
objections to several locations, said that "Africa would offer a last and 
undoubted resort," and promised his assistance. The Legislature, Jan- 
uary 16, 1802, directed a continuance of the correspondence, "for the 
purpose of obtaining a place without the limits of" the United States, 
"to which free negroes or mulattoes, and such negroes or mulattoes as 
may be emancipated, may be sent or choose to remove as a place of 
asylum;" requesting the President "to prefer Africa, or any of the 
Spanish or Portuguese settlements in South America." Tliis resolution 
differs from the former, in that it does not contemplate a penal colony, 
and does contemplate increased facilities for emancipation, in a mode 
which the State did not esteem dangerous. The President corresponded 
with the British Government concerning Sierra Leone, and with the 
Portuguese concerning their possessions in South America, but without 
success. In 1805, January 22, a resolution was passed instructing the 
Senators and requesting the Representatives from that State to endeavor 
to pi'ocure a suitable territory in Louisiana. No action followed, and 
the matter slept ten years. Yet the proposition of Ann Mifflin, and 
the correspondence of John Lynd with Thomas Jefierson, in 1811, 
showed that the idea was still alive and at work. 

Another of these numerous origins must be noticed. In the spring 
of 1808, a few undergraduates of Williams College, Massachusetts, 
formed themselves into a society, whose object was "to effect, in the 
persons of its members, a mission or missions to the heathen." In about 



Aiid Christian Missions. 9 

two years, this society was transferred to tlie Theological Seminary at 
Andover, of which most of them had become members. Here they 
procured the formation of a "Society of Inquiry respecting Missions;" 
and tliere was thenceforth the ciiief seat of their labors. With becom- 
ing modesty, they regarded themselves as little else than mere school- 
boys, competent, indeed, to make inquiries, collect information, and 
discover wants that ouglit to be supplied, but needing the guidance of 
older and wiser men to mature judicious plans and execute them suc- 
cessfully. Tiie proposal of four of them to go on a niissicm to the 
heathen in foreign lands led directly to the formation of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Suggestions from these 
young men, or some of them, also led to the f »rmation of the American 
Bible Society, and, though in some cases less directly, several other 
kindred institutions, for which the state of feeling in the religious world 
was prepared. 

Samuel J. Mills has been commonly regarded as the leader of these 
inquirers. With a companion, he made a journey of inquiry through 
large parts of the new settlements in the United States, especially the 
south-western part. He came back with the knowledge of many wants 
to be supplied, and fnlly convinced that, to use his own words, "we 
must save the negroes, or the negroes will ruin us;" and that there was 
so much at the South of right feeling toward the negroes that something 
might be done toward saving them. The matter was abundantly dis- 
cussed. A colony was proposed somewhere in the vast wilderness 
between the Ohio and the great lakes. But one of them, at lengthy, 
objected to that location. " Whether any of us live to see it or not," 
said he, "the time will come when white men will want all that region, 
and will have it, and our colony will be overwhelmed by them." So 
they concluded tliat the colony must be in Africa. 

Mills went to New Jersey, to study theology with Dr. Griffin, at 
Newark, and still more, as Dr. Griffin soon thought, to engage him and 
other leading men in that region in considering whether certain good 
objects could be accomplished, and how. While there, he originsited 
the school for the education of pious blacks at Parsippany, some thirty 
miles fiom Princeton. It was placed under the care and patronage of 
the Synod of New Jersey; and thus the Presbyterian clergy of that 
State were brought into active conuectiou with Mills and his idea of 
saving the negro. 

Among the most eminent of that clergy was the Kev. Dr. Robert 
Finley. No record has been found of any direct intercourse between 
him and Mills; and there is no reason to suspect that Mills furnished 
him with a plan of a society, to be formed at Washington, f()r colonizing 
free blacks in Africa. That plan seems to have developed itself in his 
own mind, while contemplating that class of facts to which Mills was so 
busily calling attention; and it is certain that he had it under consid- 
eration as early as February, 1815. From about that time, he was 
industrious in recommending it to his friends; but they, while admitting 
that its object was good, generally distrusted its success. After pi-oba- 
bly nearly two years of such labor, he called a public meeting at 
Princeton, to consider the subject; but few besides the Faculties of the 
College and the Theological Seminary attended, and only Dr. Alexan- 



10 African Colonization 

der appears to have aided him in commending it. Still he persevered; 
and wlieii Congress assembled, early in December, 1816, he repaii-ed to 
Washington, to attempt the formation of his proposed society. On his 
arrival, lie went at once to liis brother-in-law, Ellas B. Caldwell. That 
these brothers liad previously corresponded on the subject is a probable 
conjecture, but not a known fact. Yet the ideaof colonization was not then 
new to Mr. Caldwell. It had already been suggested from another source. 
Liite in February, 1816, the Virginia secret resolutions and corre- 
spondence of 1801-5 first became known to Charles Fenton Mercer, a 
member of the Legislature of that State. Not being under the obliga- 
tion of secrecy, he at once made them known extensively in the State, 
and pledged himself to renew them at the next session of the Legisla- 
ture. Being at Washington — it must have been in March or April — 
he made known the facts and his intentions to two friends. One was 
his ohl schoolmate at Princeton, Elias B. Caldwell, who approval his 
object, and promised to use his influence with his Presbyterian friends 
in New Jersey in favor of it. The other was Francis S. Key, who 
wouhl attempt a similar movement in Maryland. General Mercer 
redeemed his pledge. His proposed resolution passed the House of 
Delegates, December 14, by a vote of 132 to 14, and the Senate, De- 
cember 23, with one dissenting vote. This Avas done without any knowl- 
edge of the plans and movements of Dr. Finley for forming a society, 
and indeed without any expectation that a society would be formed. 
His idea was that colonization would be carried by the State govern- 
ments, under the sanction and protection of the National Government. 
Still, this expression of Virginia's mind rendered important, and per- 
haps indispensable, aid to the formation and success of the Society; for 
the action of the House of Delegates was known in Washington before 
General Mercer's resolution had passed the Senate, and before any pub- 
lic meeting was holden to form a society. 

To arrange that meeting, and secure attendance upon it, cost Dr. 
Finley no slight labor. The goodness of the object was generally 
admitted; but, at the preliminary consultati(ms, those invited and 
expected were generally absent. Charles Marsh, member of Congress 
from Vermont, noticed this disposition of almost everybody to leave 
this good work to others; and, as this was the only project that he had 
ever heard of promising great good to the black race, he determined 
that it should not be allowed to die in that way. He decided that those 
who knew the plan to be a good one should attend the meetings. Of 
course, as all who ever knew his inexhaustible adroitness and persist- 
ency will easily understand, "a very respectable number" of them 
attended the first public meeting, December 21, 1816. Henry Clay, m 
the necessary absence of Judge Washington, was called to the chair. 
Elias B. Caldwell, the brother-in-law of Dr. Finley and the schoolmate 
and friend of General Mercer, perfectly informed of the plans and 
movements of both, made the leading argument in favor of forming a 
society. He stated that public attention had been called to the subject 
in New Jersey, New York, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and perhaps 
other places. He was supported by remarks from John Kandolph, of 
Virginia, and Robert Wright, of Maryland. A committee was appointed 
to prepare a constitution, and the meeting adjourned for one week. 



And Christian Missions. 11 

At the adjourned meeting, December 28, the committee reported a 
constitution, which was adopted. Fifty gentlemen affixed their names 
to it as members. The twenty-third name on the list is Samuel J. MiHs. 
What brought him there at that time, and what he was about while 
there, we can only infer from other parts of his history. 

January 1, 1817, the day fixed by the constitution, the Society met 
for the election of officers. Hon. Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, 
was chosen president, with twelve vice presidents, from nine States, 
including Georgia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, and one from the 
District of Columbia. 

Thus the Society was formed and organized, not by tlie labors of any 
one projector, or by the influence of a movement in any one part of the 
country, but by tlie union of the tendencies which, remote from each 
other and independent of each other, had been working toward that 
result for more than forty years. That the Virginia movement, or the 
New Jersey movement, or the New England movements, would have 
accomplished any thing, without the union of all, some may perhaps 
believe, but facts have not proved. Its true origin was in the desire of 
good men everywhere to do the best thing then practicable for the black 
race, in this country and in Africa— that desire prompting^ all these 
movements, and sustaining them when providentially united in one. 

From the foregoing concise but lucid account of the origin 
of the colonization scheme, for which we are indebted to the 
"Historical Discourse" of the Rev. Joseph Tracy, D.D.,* it 
is perfect!}^ evident that while this movement was fostered by 
a great variety of individuals scattered throughout the coun- 
try, representing different branches of the Church and differ- 
ent parties in the State, yet two leading motives were promi- 
nent and powerful. The one was a desire to promote the 
improvement and welfare of the individual colonists: the 
other was, through them, to Christianize Africa. It was 
throughout a Christian and philanthropic project. This will 
appear the more plainly by looking at the lives and characters 
of its advocates, and by studying their own declarations 
respecting their purposes. 

Robert Finley, who first gave the plan definite shape by 

* After turning over the pages of a score or two of volumes, and noting 
many passages bearing upon the subject, I took up the elegant "Memo- 
rial of the American Colonization Society, January 15, 1867," and, finding 
the work admirably done to my hand, I have taken the liberty to use it in 
extenso. This is done, not to save labor or time, but because this sketch 
may be regarded as an authoritative exposition from the official leaders 
of the Society; and I can vouch for its candor and faithfulness from per- 
sonal investigations. 



12 African Colonization 

bringing to bear upon it the modern and efficient agency of 
free nations — associated effort — was a distinguished divine 
and educator, of New Jersey and Georgia, being President of 
the University of the latter State at the time of his decease. 
My own honored and sainted father was his pupil at Basking 
Ridge; and among the earliest names I learned to venerate 
and love for all that constitutes the perfection of Christian 
excellence was that of Dr. Finley. His inner life is well exhib- 
ited in the following letter to a friend, John P. Mumford, Esq., 
of New York, which also illustrates the historical fact that the 
Colonization Society had its origin in the spirit of missions. 
From the "African Repository," vol. i. p. 2: 

Basking Ridge, Feb. 14, 1815. 
Dear Sir: — The longer I live to see the wretchedness of men, the 
more I admire the virtue of those who devise, and with patience labor 
to execute, plans for the relief of the wretched. On this subject, the 
state of the free blacks lias very much occupied my mind. Their num- 
ber iiicieases greatly, and their wretchedness, too, as appears to ine. 
Every thing connected with their condition, including their color, is 
against them; nor is there much prospect tliat tiieir state can ever be 
greatly meliorated while they shall continue among us. Could not the 
rich and benevolent devise means to form a colony on some pati of the coast 
of Africa, similar to the one at Sierra Leone, ivhich might gradually induce 
many free blacks to go and settle, devising for them the means of getting there, 
and of protection and support till they were established'? Could they be 
sent back to Africa, a tlireefold benefit would arise: we should be 
cleared of them; we should send to Africa a population partly civilized 
and Christianized for its benefit; and our blacks themselves would be 
put in a better situation. Tliink much upon this subject, and then, 
please, write me when you have leisure. 

The other most active person in pushing along this cause to 
a happy issue was Mills, of Connecticut, a name conspicuous 
in the annals of the American Protestant Churches. What 
manner of man he was can best be brought before our readers 
by copying from the "African Repository," vol. i. p. 63, date 
April, 1825, the following eulogium, by the eloquent pen of 
the now eminent Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Hartford, written a 
few years after the death of its subject, and while as yet all 
his great schemes were mere beginnings: 

A young minister of the gospel once said to an intimate friend, "My 
brother, you and I are little men, but, before we die, our influence must 
be felt on the other side of the world." Not many years after, a ship, 



And Christian Missions. 13 

returning from a distant quarter of tlie globe, paused on her passage 
across the deep. There stood on the deck a man of God, who wept 
over tlie dead body of liis friend. He piayed, and the sailors wept 
■with liim. And they consigned that body to the ocean. It was the 
body of the man who, in the ardor of youthful benevolence, had aspired 
to extend his influence through the world. He died in youth, but he 
had redeemed his pledge; and at this hour his influence is felt in Asia, 
in Africa, in the islands of the sea, and in every corner of his native 
country. This man was Samuel John Mills; and all who know his 
history will say that I have exaggerated neither the grandeur of his 
aspirations nor the result of his efforts. He traversed our land like a 
ministei'ing spirit, silently and yet efiectually, from the hill country of 
the Pilgrims to the Valley of the Missouri. He wandered on his errands 
of benevolence from village to village, and from city to city, pleading 
now with the patriot for a country growing up to an immensity of power, 
and now with the Christian for a world lying in wickedness. He 
explored in person the desolations of the West, and in person he stirred 
up to enterprise and effort the Churches of the East. He lived for 
India and Owhyhee, and died in the service of Africa. He went to 
heaven in his youth, but his works do follow him, like a long train of 
glory that still widens and brightens, and will widen and brighten for- 
ever. Who cau measure the influence of one such minister of the 
gospel ? 

Finley and Mills had the faith which moves mountains. By 
them vrere wrought miracles quite as conspicuous as those of 
Vincent de Paul, Xavier, or others to whom the Roman Cath- 
olic Church accords the honors of canonization; and, in com- 
mon with these and their compeers of mediaeval and apostolic 
times, their names will be held in lasting remembrance by the 
true Church universal, until the millennial day. 

As the two foremost names in the actual establishment of 
the Society were noted for activity and practical zeal, so the 
two forerunners of the scheme, in the days of British rule, 
were remarkable for the combination of deep theological lore 
with an earnest interest for human progress, which, in our 
own days, has characterized Chalmers and Channing. Samuel 
Hopkins was the student of Jonathan Edwards, and was for 
thirty years pastor at Newport, Rhode Island, and eminent as 
head of a school in theological controversy called, after him, 
"Hopkinsian." "He had many qualities fitting him for a 
reformer: great singleness of purpose, invincible patience of 
research, sagacity to detect and courage to oppose errors, a 
thirst for consistency of views, and resolution to carry out his 
principles to their legitimate consequences." A typical char- 



14 African Colonization 

acter, he hag passed into the domain of romance as the hero 
of Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing." His coadjutor was 
Ezra Stiles, pastor at Newport for twenty-one years, and Presi- 
dent of Yale College for eighteen years. Noted for learning, 
eloquence, and piety, he ranks very high in the list of the 
great men who have been connected with that venerable insti- 
tution. 

If the precursors and founders of the Society were men of 
such mark, the followers and aids coming at their call were 
composed of such material as could be found at no other 
period, in no other place, and under no other circumstances 
in our country's domain or history. There is open before me 
a page containing, in a list of fifty names, the original mem- 
bers. First is H. Clay, who devoted his life to advocating the 
"American System," and, a little below, that of John Ran- 
dolph, of Roanoke, who devoted his life, with equal pertinacity 
and more success, to the destruction of that system; both, 
however, harmonized then, and through many years continued 
to harmonize, in sentiments of philanthropy to their servants, 
if not to the world. High in the list, with peculiar appropri- 
ateness, occurs the name of Dr. William Thornton, one of the 
earliest, most self-denying, and enthusiastic advocates of the 
project of African colonization. Daniel Webster, thus early 
in his grand career, bears testimony to the value of a move- 
ment which, had not cross-grained human nature intervened, 
would have maintained inviolate both Union and Constitution. 
Richard Bland Lee, J. Mason, Geo. A. Carroll, Bushrod Wash- 
ington, and others, gracefully remind us that Maryland and 
Virginia were as forward in giving their representative men 
to the cause as they were, afterward, persevering in maintain- 
ing colonies under its auspices. William Meade, whose apos- 
tolic zeal and happy combination of human learning with 
Christian graces has made him known and dear to multitudes 
who never heard his voice, is an appropriate forerunner of the 
many accomplished divines, from the Episcopal and other 
Churches, who have since fostered the work. I must forbear 
for want of time, mentioning only one other name — that of 
the talented lawyer, Francis S. Key, whose "Star-spangled 
Banner" will in all likelihood continue to be sung by enthu- 



And Christian Missions. 15 

siastic millions in America for centuries to come, as has Luther's 
battle hymn in Germany for centuries past. 

It matters not how we take up the history of this American 
Colonization Society, in its remote conception, in its birth, 
through its infancy to a now vigorous youth, always, it bears 
testimony strong and impregnable that its aims are good — 
good for America, good for Africa, good for the Church of 
God. 

To give, even succinctly, an account of the development 
and results of the Society, at home and in its African colony 
of Liberia, would require so much space that I am unwilling 
to tax farther the pafience of my readers.* I content myself 
with the broad but emphatic statement that the grand result 
obtained, and fully compensating for all, and a thousand-fold 
more than all, its cost, is hope — hope for Africa, hope for the 
African race in America. Liberia opens the door to a conti- 
nent, and holds out an excelsior banner to a race. The salva- 
tion of the African race in America depends upon their 
entering that door and grasping that banner. Shakspeare 
never more singularly exhibited his wonderful talent of seiz- 
ing at a glance and describing by a word' the true characteris- 
tics of individuals, classes, and nations than when he called 
France God's own soldier. Devotion to an idea has given 
France, since the days of Clovis, preeminence among the 
nations of Europe. A proof of vanity it may be, but a source 
of noble deeds, drawing upon it the admiration of Islam no 
less than of Christendom, is the "idea that to France belong 
the defense and protection of the Christian faith. The salva- 
tion of the Western world from the swarming hordes of Sara- 

*Dr. S. D. Baldwin well epitomizes the progress made some twenty- 
years since, in the following passage on page 456 of "Dominion: " " For 
thirty years an experiment of thus redeeming Africa has been under 
the direction of private benevolence. For ten years a republic, growing 
out of colonization, has been in prosperous existence; and each success- 
ive year has increased the products of the country fifty per cent. Libe- 
ria is the most remarkable political phenomenon in history. It alone, of 
all the nations ever organized, arose without bloodshed. With the most 
exuberant soil, and the most favorable of climates, with the greatest 
variety of fruits and indigenous staples, it has advantages for the site of 
Hamitic dominion which no other part of Africa affords." 



16 African Colonization 

cens, the brilliant deeds of two centuries of crusades in Pal- 
estine, and in all the East, iift^es Frank sj'nonymous with 
Christian, justifies this high assumption, and removes it far 
from the category of empty braggadocio. The idea of liberty, 
as carried out by self-government, is the basis of American 
nationality. The development of this idea has given it a place 
among nations never reached before in so short a period. The 
abandonment of this idea will speedily consign it to an effete 
corruption. Every people must have some high ideal after 
which to aspire. This ideal is its soul; when acted upon, the 
people have life, and more or less, according to its felt influ- 
ence. Now, what other ideal is there, or can there be, for the 
African race in the United States than that which has for a 
full century been so modestly, yet hopefully, enunciated by 
themselves — the regeneration of Africa by and through them; 
and how hopeless all such aspirations but for the good work 
so patiently performed through the Colonization Society. 
Thus we have seen the patient labor of a half-century result 
in the secure establishment of a Christian republic on the 
western coast of Africa, occupying just the latitudes pecul- 
iarly unfit for the labors of Caucasian missionaries, although 
inhabited by teeming millions of natives in various stages of 
barbarism. Just contemporary with this result we have 
another, illustrating the doctrine, so dear to every devout 
mind, of an overruling and directing Providence. For three 
thousand years, or more, the Sphynx has been the emblem of 
Africa. With the exception of a narrow rim, the continent 
has been a vast unknown region to the active and enterprising 
nations around, whose emissaries have vainly endeavored to 
penetrate its recesses and unveil its mysteries. Within a score 
of years the veil has commenced to rise, the Sphynx is show- 
ing its proportions, the riddle is being solved. This remarka- 
ble progress in geographical discovery has been compassed 
mainly through the persevering efforts of Christian mission- 
aries, of whom the heroic Livingstone is a type. Another 
twenty years of such effort and discovery will make us 
acquainted with the great features of all central Africa. 

As our knowledge of this region extends, we find many 
tribes with a rude civilization equal, at least, to that of our 



And Christian Missions. 17 

own forefathers in the wikls and fastnesses of German}-, less 
than two thousand years ago, when the Roman legions vainly 
attempted to penetrate and suhdue that region. What Pao-an 
Eome signally failed to do. Christian Rome as signally accom- 
plished, and specially through the extensive German element 
introduced and incorporated into Rome by the results of sev- 
eral centuries of war. "What more reasonable and sober- 
minded analogy can be drawn from any comparison of past, 
present, and probable future events, than that the fast-increas- 
ing millions of Africans in America, acting upon their own 
countrymen in Africa, through the firmly secured base line 
of Liberia, and during century after century, may accomplish 
a similar wonderful result. 

The grandest revolution in the world's history, so far as we, 
that is, all Europe and America, are concerned, is the one 
wdiich changed the great plains of northern, and the moun- 
tain fastnesses of central, Europe into the strongholds of 
Christian faith, learning, art, science, and government. This 
revolution was the work of not less than ten centuries of con- 
tinuous efibrt and struggle. Its history fills volumes upon 
volumes, from the inspired pen of Paul to the eloquent pages 
of the pure and charitable Montalembert. Our all is con- 
tained in that history. How perfectly rational, by the light 
of past Providence and the clear words of Holy Scripture, is 
the belief that the real solution of that problem w^hich for a 
century has perplexed the minds of our good men and great, 
of our Washingtons and Jetlersons, ourEveretts and Greens, 
our Finleys and Breckinridges, our Alexanders and Baldwins, 
to-wit., the problem of Africa in America, will thus find its 
glorious and happy solution. As Rome, conquered by Ger- 
many, redeemed and disenthralled Germany from the depths 
of barbaric superstition and misery, so may America compen- 
sate enslaved Africa for centuries of unchristian violence by 
imparting to her the light and life of the gospel. In the one 
case good w^as returned for evil; in the other, evil is atoned 
for by good. In both cases the wonder-working providence 
of the Judge of all the earth overrules evil for good. 

Africa in America ! How strangely blended together have 
been the fortunes of the two most contrasted families of the 
2 



18 African Colonisation 

human race in this great American government from its ver}^ 
conception until now, and how perfectly probable that through- 
out remote generations so long as the nation endures this 
intercommunity, shall continue to exist and to exercise as 
heretofore a predominant influence upon the country at large. 
ISTothina: is so durable as race. Even a small remnant of a 
people will maintain its ground for many centuries, under 
every disadvantage, external and internal. History is full of 
examples. AVe have now some five millions of African peo- 
IDle within our borders. In due time their descendants will 
be the double and the quadruple of this number, which again 
will be very much increased and fostered by the absorption 
of the AVest Indies and the remainder of the North Ameri- 
can Continent, evidently a question of merely a few years less 
or more. These millions will not be everywhere dispersed 
and assimilated. Just the opposite. They will probably con- 
gregate in the cities and towns of the temperate South, and 
upon the cotton and sugar lands of the more tropical regions. 
In either case they will remain in large bodies; they will be 
a people within a people. 

Occupying this position, their advancement and welfare 
will depend very much upon the spirit and wisdom displayed 
by the surrounding millions toward them. Kindly, consider- 
ately, and wisely treated, they will continue as heretofore to 
be the most valuable portion of the community as a wealth- 
producing factor, while steadily developing in moral and intel- 
lectual qualities. Unwise and unchristian conduct may con- 
vert them into pariahs and paupers. They are with us and of 
us. The thirty-five millions of Caucasians now dwelling 
between the two oceans have that at stake in their upward or 
downward progress which cannot be ignored, as will their 
grandchildren of the one hundred and fifty millions. In the 
duty so plainly devolved upon America of transforming and 
Christianizing Africa, all Americans should unite, impelled 
so to do not less from Christian principle than by due regard 
to self-interest. 

We cannot think of any field for Christian and philan- 
thropic efitbrt so worthy the attention and continued liberality 
of our Northern brethren as that discussed in this article. A 



And Christian Missions. 19 

very large portion of Isl'ortbern wealth is the result of negro 
labor. Looking through two centuries, a vast balance is due 
the negro from the accumulated wealth of the centers of 
commerce. Let this balance, in some small degree, be 
promptly reduced by the complete endowment of schools and 
colleges in Liberia, by the support of numerous missions in 
all the country contiguous, and by generous efforts to foster 
and develop the infant republic in every possible direction. 
Let the work, as yet but just commenced, of supplying schools 
for general and special instruction of high grade in teachers 
and outiit, to the African communities in our own land, be 
vigorously and earnestly pushed forward with reference to 
long protracted and patient working. To us, knowing some- 
what by riersonal observation of what has been done in the 
South in this respect, and placing full value upon the work of 
the many good men and women engaged in teaching in such 
institutions as Fisk University, and others too numerous to 
specify, and at the same time knowing how lavish of means 
the rich men of the ISTorth have been in the last ten years for 
educational purposes, it is matter of astonishment that so lit- 
tle has been done toward the building and endowing of 
churches, schools, and colleges, for this people. Here is a 
great work to be done. It ought to be done speedily. It is 
the natural and appropriate work of the good people of the 
North. 

If the material should come from the North, the spiritual 
must come from the South. It is with the Southern people 
that the African always has been and always must be neigh- 
bor. A constant contact and association exists. Let the good 
Christian people of the South quietly, conscientiously, and 
earnestly contemplate the duties thus imposed upon them as 
individuals and as a body. Ignoring all the vexations, trou- 
bles, and annoyances springing from the untoward events con- 
nected v»-itli a deep-seated revolution of, for, and in which the 
good-natured African was certainly as innocent as innocence 
could be, let the whites cultivate a kindly temper toward 
them, and show a friendly interest in their well-being. Search 
the annals of history, and in vain will we seek for another 
instance in which an enslaved race has deserved so well of its 



20 African Colonization. 

masters as has this. By two centuries of patient toil they 
developed and enriched the South. Through four years of 
internecine civil war no San Domingo hand of revolt, sedi- 
tion, mutiny, was lifted up by them. They thus demonstrated 
to all the world that their eight millions of masters were not 
merciless despots, and that contrary to all outside views a 
kindly feeling did exist between the two races. On the other 
hand, when in the vicissitudes of the revolution the masters 
were disfranchised, and the late slaves became dominant, we 
know from a wide-extended observation and information that 
the late masters at least took the change with great patience 
and good nature. Surely if in the midst of slavery, war, and 
chaotic government, so much of kindly good feeling prevailed, 
there can be no doubt but that hereafter the whites and the 
blacks will live alongside each other wnth mutual good will 
and good offices. This is one of the best omens that a pros- 
perous and happy future awaits the African people in America. 
In thus reviewing and commenting upon the historj' of the 
American Colonization Society, I cannot avoid the reflection 
now that the record, written in the blood of heroes and the 
tears of widows and orphans, and sealed with a debt which 
will burden unborn millions has passed into history, how 
much to be lamented it is that the gentle, humane, consider- 
ate, and peace-making views of its advocates found no favor 
with the American people, and that each section of the coun- 
try preferred to follow the counsels of violent and selfish men. 
In medio tutissimus ibis. Reform, not revolution, saves a 
nation. "When the Colonization Society was founded, the 
friends of emancipation were numerous and influential, and 
outspoken in all the border States. Born in one of the mid- 
dle slave States, and, during a life-time, conversant with the 
people of the border and adjoining States, I am perfectly sure 
that under the quiet influence of the Constitution, and the 
active efl-brts of the Churches, the same results would have 
followed in these States as in those farther ISTorth. The Chris- 
tian sentiment of the country was in favor of freedom, but it 
was not in favor of robber3^ and covenant breaking. Left to 
work out the problem, a solution would have been found cer- 
tainly far less costly, perhaps quite as speedy, as that which 



And Christian Missions. 21 

has been brought about by the combined action and reaction 
of the hostile factions whose infuriate or selfish clamor was 
poured out against all friends of peace and conciliation. 
Three thousand millions of dollars is a high estimate of the 
capital invested in slaves when the civil war commenced. 
The debt incurred hy the nation at large for quarreling will 
not, when properly estimated, be much less. The expendi- 
tures by the Confederate States for war purposes could not 
have been less, while the destruction of cotton, houses, fences, 
stock, and so on, was, perhaps, much more. Nine thousand 
millions has been the prime cost in money. 'No figures can 
estimate that of life. To the historian of a distant future 
must be left the task of recording and judging its effects upon 
the public and private morals of the nation. Hopeful myself 
of the final result, because I believe" that divine Providence 
has raised up this great republic for a work in the establish- 
ment of Christianity comparable to that of Rome itself, yet 
all candid men must see that American Republicanism has 
been, and is now, passing through a terrible ordeal, because 
its leaders have despised the wisdom which is from above, 
which is gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of good works, 
and have preferred to follow that which is sensual and devil- 
ish, which makes men hateful and hating one another. 

As forcibly describing the sentiment above-stated to have 
widely prevailed through the slave-holding States, I may quote 
from the works of the illustrious Benjamin Rush, a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, whose name is to-day held in 
reverence by sixty thousand physicians, and who, in a remark- 
able degree, united in himself the characteristics of scholar, 
statesman, orator, physician, philanthropist, and Christian. 
No man did more than he in shaping public opinion at the 
time when a pebble thrown upon the surface rippled far and 
wide. It is taken from a discourse delivered before the 
American Philosophical Society, in which he alludes to " the 
labors, the publications, the private letters, and prayers of 
Anthony Benezet : " 

" The State of Pennsylvania still deplores the loss of a 
man in whom not only reason and revelation, but many of 
the physical causes that have been enumerated, concurred to 



22 African Colonization 

produce sucli attainments in moral excellency as have seldom 
appeared in a liuman being. This amiable citizen considered 
his fellow-creature, man, as God's extract from his own works; 
and whether this image of himself was cut out from ebony 
or copper, whether he spoke his own or a foreign language, 
or whether he worshiped with ceremonies or without them, 
he still considered him as a brother, and equally the object of 
his benevolence. Poets and historians, who are to live here- 
after, to you I commit his panegyric ; and when you hear of 
a law for abolishing slavery in each of the American States, 
such as was passed in Pennsylvania in the year 1780 ; when 
you hear of the kings and queens of Europe publishing 
edicts for abolishing the trade in human souls; and, lastly, 
when you hear of schools and churches, with all the arts of 
civilized life, being established among the nations of Africa, 
then remember and record that this revolution in favor of 
human happiness was the effect of the labors, the publications, 
the private letters, and the prayers of Anthony Benezet." 

That at one time a wide-spread dissatisfaction with slavery, 
and a consequent readiness for a wisely-planned emancipa- 
tion policy, did prevail throughout the South as the fruit of 
the teachings of great men in the slave-holding States, like 
Push, Jefl'erson, Mason, liandolph, and many others, is per- 
fectly well known to all those acquainted with its literature 
or social circles. Samuel Davies Baldwin, the acute, the 
imaginative, the devout, whom the cholera, in 1866, carried ofl* 
in his meridian of brilliant usefulness, and who left the entire 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in a sorrow and mourn- 
ing sympathized with by all the admirers of genius and 
piety, makes a striking allusion to the fact in the following 
passage, taken from his original and singular book, "Domin- 
ion:" "When the Hamites were a burden, and the South, 
restless under the incubus, would have foregone the gift of 
Heaven, severing it from the flying train of human advance- 
ment, God then rebound the black and the white together by 
new bonds of wealth. He whitened the Southern fields with 
new and fleecy riches, and, vivifying our spacious vales with 
more than cereal plenty, he made the servant a useful tenant 
to the lord." 



And Christian Missions. 



9SK 



Quoting this passage from Dr. Baldwin for the strong words 
incubus and burden, we cannot let it go forth without correct- 
ing the erroneous impression it conveys, honestly enough, 
however, from the writer's peculiar stand-point and ohject. 
Others, from a different stand-point, and from very different 
motives, have represented the sudden and blunt stoppage of 
emancipation as the result of the annexation of Louisiana, 
Whitney's invention, and cotton culture. A correct analysis 
of history will show that it was not caused by the consequence 
of these events, but by political agitation. 

But still a stronger testimony. When the Confederate 
War was scarcely hushed, while as yet weeping and des- 
olation were to be heard and seen from the broad Potomac to 
the turbid Rio Grande, there came from throughout this wide 
expanse the deep-drawn sigh of relief and consolation, w4iich 
found its utterance through the impetuous, frank-spoken Gov- 
ernor Wise, of Virginia, and the versatile, gifted President 
Longstreet, of Mississippi and South Carolina : "At all events, 
we are rid of African slavery, thanks be to God!" This 
utterance, reechoed by multiplied thousands, shows that we 
have not judged amiss the Christian South. 

In 1834, during a visit to the city of New York, I witnessed 
the first display of military force called out by the passions 
of unreasonable men. It was a regiment or tw^o of New 
York militia, detailed to protect a few industrious African 
draymen and hackmen from the selfish interference of an 
Irish mob. Wise men then said that if all these questions 
were left to the decision of the Christian conscience of the 
country, it would be well, but that if men seeking ofiice took 
them up, woe would betide the land. Politicians did enter 
the arena. Section was arrayed against section, and in 1864 
the country, as all will agree, was upon the verge of ruin. 
That the great Republic was not so broken up, that extensive 
portions were absorbed by powerful and jealous European 
nations, which plotted and hoped for our destruction, must be 
ascribed to a higher Power, and not to our wisdom. Ought 
not the Christian Churches of our land to have stemmed this 
torrent of wild, raging passion during all its formative period, 
by preaching loudly and clearly, " Glory to God in the high- 



24 African Colonization and Christian Missions. 

est, and on earth, peace, good will toward men"? By so 
doing, the storm might have been averted, and certainly its 
duration and violence would have been greatly lessened. 
"When office-seekers were engaged in arraying section against 
section, the duty of peace-makers was obvious. To-day 
another cloud no larger than a man's hand is faintly seen all 
around the horizon. Mutterings of a storm fill the atmos- 
phere. If that storm breaks, the mighty convulsions we have 
so recently witnessed will sink into insignificance in the com- 
parison. Let us give heed to the signs of the time. Let us 
remember that reform, not revolution, has given stability and 
permanence to the institutions of our grand old mother. 
Great Britain. Let us also remember that this English spirit 
of peaceful reform, as contrasted with bloody French revolu- 
tion, is an ofishoot of Bible Christianity. Let us preach 
peace always : peace between sections, peace between classes. 
So will it come to pass that the IsTorth American Continent 
will become the grandest theater of all those arts, sciences, 
and virtues, begotten and fostered of peace, ever gilded by 
the rays of the efi'ulgent globe which is the emblem of our 
Master, the Prince of Peace, the Sun of Righteousness. 



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